


“Magic,” they spat with malice

by Mallory_Clayborne



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: (as in the main chars are ranging from ~18-25 max), At the moment I only have one chapter planned for each character, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Imagine what you want around what I’ve written, Mortals hate sorcerers AU, The chapters are all like… simultaneous, There’s not that much written worldbuilding sorry, and the mortals are in charge, but I may write more in the future, it makes sense if you read it (I hope), like sorcerers are meant to be bound in public, young adult au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 15:19:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mallory_Clayborne/pseuds/Mallory_Clayborne
Summary: So this is an AU I decided to play around with where the mortals are dominant: the sorcerers are second-class citizens, and magic is strictly regulated. See this world through the eyes of the teenage Dead Men (and a few other people who show up too).Not on hiatus... even though it may seem so, since I've not posted a chapter in forever. More will appear at some point, I promise. It just may take months and months.





	1. The Escapee

## I. The Escapee

He didn’t care he was tired. His lungs burned and his eyes stung and he felt like he was going to throw up, but he wasn’t going to get another chance like this. He was uninjured, unbound, surrounded by cover and for once, not hungry, so he ran, and kept running. Any time he heard his pursuers closing the gap, he moved to the less dense sections of trees and sprinted for as long as his body could stand it without collapsing, before moving back into the trees and bushes and slowing to a jog.

The longer this went on, though, the more he was worried he’d have to find an alternative to outrunning them: he didn’t know how many had followed, at least three but maybe up to six, and he didn’t know whether or not they had the ability to see him in the dark and the foliage, maybe a heat camera or something. They were almost certainly better fed than him, and at least to some extent, armed, so really his only advantage was the petrifying, adrenaline-inducing fear of what would happen if they managed to catch him. His thoughts were getting blurrier as his brain screamed for him to stop running, and when he encountered a section of lots of low-hanging branches, he had to ignore his chattering mind completely to concentrate on not smacking into any of them and cutting his life short here and now. Back with some headroom, he passed through his options.

Keep running and hope they give up: simplest, but most likely to fail.

Move out to the side and hide in the darkness: they’d know he’d stopped running by the sound, and his breathing might give him away, and that was ignoring the fact they could have thermal imaging on their side.

Give himself up: he’d probably suffer marginally less than if he was caught, but it wasn’t enough to give this serious consideration.

And then, there was his fourth option. The most effective, with the worst possible consequences if it was discovered. But his morality was giving more and more ground the longer he ran, and he wanted it to be over so desperately. The thudding behind him got louder and he knew they were getting close again, so he tried to speed up but his muscles said no. He could go no faster and he was slowing by the second, lactic acid burning like napalm under his skin and bile rising into his throat. He staggered to a stop and knelt at the side of the biggest tree in the vicinity, bringing his shaking hands to his chest and forcing himself to concentrate on the buttons, just the buttons, twist it and push it through the buttonhole, and the next one, doing down the shirt, ignoring the ringing in his ears and the urge to retch, just keeping his focus on the buttons, and it began to get lighter as his pursuers got so close he could see their torchlight, and he began to wonder if they had guns but he stopped himself so he could undo another button, and just as the first of the men ran into sight he pulled the two sides of his shirt apart-

-a mass of black, far blacker than the night, burst from his chest with a howl of rage and pain and dived straight for the man, passing straight through him but twisting over itself and coming back, and on the second time claws ripped through the man’s chest and he screamed, fell to his knees but the monster had already lost interest, moving onto the next one and shearing across his torso like he was polystyrene, driving two together and skewering them before flying upwards and pulling its talons with it until they emerged having torn through these men’s skulls, and the last one fired suppressed shots at it but the lead passed straight through the blackness and the monster tore through sinew and bone and the gun fell to the floor with the man’s hand still on the trigger, and he opened his mouth to scream but the monster forced itself inside the man’s mouth, tearing him open and mangling him, dropping him to the floor. The monster had shrieked the whole time but it got so much louder when it suddenly jerked backwards, pulled towards the trees from near which it had emerged, and then the screaming stopped as it disappeared, and Anton Shudder immediately fell to the damp, muddy floor and vomited for what felt like hours, before passing out with the smell of blood and the stench of murder around him.


	2. The Ensorceller

## II. The Ensorceller

She’d had barely four hours sleep when her door was unlocked and Alphonse let himself in. She sat up, pulling the sheet with her, a little cold but ignoring it. He told her someone would be here in half an hour: she needed a wash, she stank of ozone, he said, and she needed to put fresh makeup on. She nodded and got up, taking clean underwear from her chest of drawers before she followed Alphonse to the bathroom. He unlocked the door and she went in, stripped quickly and stepped into the shower quicker under his gaze, and washed herself with watered-down strawberry-scented liquid soap, tugging her fingers through her hair to sort out the worst of the knots.

Alphonse tapped around on his phone, probably managing appointments or something, so she got a few more minutes than normal in the warmth and she felt the cold in her bones subdue itself. When he looked up and clicked his tongue, she got out, squeezing her hair into the sink and wrapping herself in a towel from the rail. Alphonse stepped closer, his phone in his pocket, and rubbed her dry through the towel. When he moved away again, she dried where he hadn’t, and took her underwear from the countertop, moving to wrap the towel around her hair so she could slide it on and fasten her bra. She followed Alphonse back to her room and she continued getting dressed, spraying herself with deodorant before choosing a wide-sleeved chiffon blouse and heather-grey leggings, staying barefoot. She went to her bedsheets and smoothed them out while Alphonse told her about the man who’d be coming. As she crossed back across the room and settled into an armchair in the small sitting area, he gave her a piece of paper, with someone’s name and picture and hobbies and secrets, and she read it, blanching internally at what it said, but nodded calmly before giving it back. Alphonse gave her a warning to be good, his fingers grazing over the holster of his stun gun, and she nodded again before he left, tapping a fob on his keys against a raised section of wall next to the door as he left, the door clicking locked behind him.

She felt pent-up magic flow into her body, no longer bound, and she relaxed and blew a breath out from pursed lips, a stream of pink bubbles being formed and floating into the room around her head. She amused herself with bubbles and fluttering petals for however long it took until she heard the door click open again, and a familiar panic threatened to rise in her chest as she quickly dispelled everything she’d created.

Alphonse was the one pushing the door open, but he didn’t come in - it was another man who stepped in, an average height, light brown skin and dark brown combed-over hair. Dandruff speckled his black suit jacket and his hair looked two days past due some shampoo, but she smiled at him and he came and sat opposite her. She asked a few questions about the things he’d come for, and he started to smile - which was very, very creepy as far as she was concerned - as he corrected details. Once he was done, she started with the objects he wanted.

A baseball bat. Long, galvanised nails. A hammer.

They appeared on the table in front of them, and she blinked somewhat distantly, but he’d stopped looking at her by now and was opening the box of nails, tipping some out on the table, marvelling at how solid and sharp they were. He worked with her creations for half an hour, hammering the nails into the bat, and she watched, trying to strike a balance between not looking bored, so the man had nothing to criticise her for, and trying not think about what he was going to do with her magic. When he was done, he told her so, and she smiled again, more strained than before, hoping he wouldn’t notice. The man took his wallet from his pocket and opened it, fishing a crumpled photo of a woman’s head and shoulders from a zipped section, and handed it over to her, filling her in with height, weight and build. She stared at the picture and tried to numb her mind as she materialised the woman in the room.

The woman looked terrified. The man stood up, nail bat in hand, and swung it at the newly-appeared woman, and it smashed into the side of her head, making her scream in agony as the metal pierced her flesh and caused blood to spurt from her temples. The conjured woman was trembling in pain, and she herself had flinched even though she wasn’t the target of impact. She desperately tried to keep the panic at the very edges of her mind, tried not to let it interfere with her casting, tried not to let it overwhelm her. But the man began to beat the woman, screaming profanities at her, calling her a cheating slut who deserved this a million times, blood and little chunks of flesh splattering across the room, and since he wasn’t paying any attention to the source of the illusion she let a little fairy flutter in front of her, trying to look at it, letting it soothe her.

Ten minutes passed and the illusionary woman was long since dead, the man panting as he half-heartedly beat her lifeless remains. He dropped the bat and went and sat down in the chair, asked for a drink, and she created him a whiskey and water. He drank it quickly, evening his breathing, and passed a comment about the good illusion before leaving the room. When he was gone, Alphonse poked his head in and tapped the section of the wall again, and she felt her magic dull and disappear to the edges of her consciousness, and immediately all evidence of the man’s attack disappeared, except the violence seared into Angel-Fae Blossom’s mind that she cried herself into a fitful day-sleep thinking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angel-Fae Blossoms is an OC created by my best friend, who graciously granted me permission to use her in this fic. Her full description will help you understand this character better; it’s the pinned tweet at @faerieblossoms ; but in short, she’s a Neoteric ‘emphatic illusionist’ who can create incredibly realistic fantasies for people (but takes an incredible mental toll on her herself), hence why she’s being used in this way.


	3. The Combatant and the Doyenne

## III. The Combatant and the Doyenne

He could hear the crowd waiting for him on the other side of the door, shouting and cheering, growing more impatient by the second. They’d had their appetisers, their starters: a fight between eight hungry pitbulls, and two scantily-clad girls showing off their MMA and their bodies. But the main course was yet to come, and he was a part of it, as always. He’d not been taken off the menu yet: never lost, never eaten, so he didn’t need to be, although each night could be his last, which he tried not to think about.

He sighed and stood from his chair, going over to the full length mirror and assessing how he looked. Silken boxing shorts in black and gold covering his thighs, slip-on Vans for now that he’d kick off before the fight. Shirtless, lightly scarred here and there on his torso, no hand wraps, his hair clean and golden and not over-styled. He took his towel from the table next to him and draped it around his neck, twisting to look at his back, his muscles rippling. He’d long got over the fear of his performances, six days a week, and though he was still wary - he wasn’t stupid - he had a decent amount of confidence.

The door behind him, back into the building, not to the crowd, clicked open, and a woman stepped through. She was a few inches shorter than him, hair so dark it was almost as if it absorbed every colour around it, falling with the hint of waves to her waist, toned arms and thighs visible around and in her tank top and leggings. Her eyes were the iciest blue a human could imagine, and her skin was creamy pale without looking washed out. A dangerous shade of red graced her lips, and he knew for a fact the last man to call her Snow White was in a ditch somewhere. Her tattoos were dulled. He turned to her and asked about numbers of spectators, and she laughed and told him this could have been any music festival, any football final, any inauguration, and he had better perform for her. He laughed back, comfortable, working for her but quite her equal, and as long as she did her part and he did his he’d emerge victorious, or in the worst case scenario, not dead.

An alarm buzzed on his table and he crossed to turn it off, and together they walked to the door behind which the audience waited. She ruffled his hair and he repeated his mantra, _is minic a rinne bromach gioblach capall_ , something kind of like the success of an ugly duckling, and he slid the latch across and the two of them walked out to the deafening roar of a crowd. The announcer saw them, called his name over the tannoy, called his record with a slight awe to his tone, and the two reached the edge of the cage within a few seconds. The young woman took a seat on a metal chair set out on their side of the hexagonal chain link, crossing her legs nearly, and picked up one of the bottles of water underneath it, passing it up to him. He took a drink, maybe 100ml, before passing the bottle back and handing her the towel around his neck. They both paid only glancing attention as his opponent and their trainer entered the other side of the hall, showboating for the crowd with fear hidden deep in their stances. They didn’t really pose him a threat, he was certain, so he smiled at the woman who smiled back her beautiful smile.

Stepping towards where the cage swung open on this side, he nodded to the man in a white shirt and bow tie holding the gate for him - one might call him a referee, except there was no actual judging of this contest whatsoever - and walked across to the blue cross that marked his starting position. His opponent took up stance on a green cross a few metres away. They looked much less cocky now. He smiled, and watched as something rippled around the cage as the two gates were secured shut - her handiwork, of course, a forcefield to protect the spectators.

A loud buzzer sounded and he snapped into focus, raising his hands in a guard in front of his face in case his opponent was a physical attacker. The downside of him being the popular one was his discipline was common knowledge, whilst he only learnt what his opponent could do when they started their offensive. Still, if he couldn’t cope with that, he wouldn’t have done so well up until now. His opponent was beginning to circle, and he was careful not to turn his back, when suddenly something small and black and very fast jumped from his opponent’s open palm and darted towards him. He jumped to the side, the snake-like thing with - oh, that was a lot of teeth - missing him by inches, and just as another began to exit his opponent’s palm he thrust his own hand forwards and brilliant white energy exploded, hitting his opponent in the chest and sending them flying backwards with force he hadn’t quite intended to use so early on, but he supposed it got the job done. The crowed roared in excitement, and his opponent struggled to his feet, readying themselves to let the parasites out once more, but he was faster and more energy burst forth, hitting them in the shoulder and forcing them to stagger backwards. Their fear was surface-level now, and he had a feeling this would be over soon. A parasite leapt for his head and he met it with a beam, and it squealed and retreated, and he moved in with an unexpected round kick to his opponent’s ribs, slamming the air out of them and knocking them sideways. They stumbled into the chain, and just as he raised his palm to blast them again, the buzzer sounded and he lowered his hand to his side, crossing the dais to his gate, outside of which she sat waiting with water and a confident smirk.

Round two, three, and four and a couple of small cuts on him from the parasites’ teeth were nothing compared to the bruises and burns beginning to show on his opponent. They were breathing raggedly and heavily, and he brought his hands together and pushed them outwards to send a huge, blinding beam towards the centre of their chest. They tried to dodge but it only served to make the blast catch them slightly askew, sending them backwards but with a painful-looking torque causing their body to twist in on itself. They hit the floor with a loud, dull thud, audible even over the noise of the crowd, and didn’t get up. They were still except the slight rise and fall of their chest, eyes closed, blood pooling around them in some places, and the audience went wild, his name and the time of his victory being piped in over the tannoy, and he crossed to his gate for the last time tonight with a tired but genuine smile on his face. She had stood and opened the gate to step into the cage to meet him, and wiped his brow gently with a towel before taking his hand and raising it up into the air in victory. Dexter Vex glanced at his unconscious opponent and silently thanked them for another night safe, another night in the circuit, and China Sorrows gazed out at the adoring audience around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is minic a rinne bromach gioblach capall - a ragged colt often makes a powerful horse. The scrappy ones grow into the strongest, or something along those lines.


End file.
